Keith Richards, survivor

Today is Keith Richards’ 70th birthday. The odds of the Rolling Stones guitarist living this long are probably similar to winning the lottery, and his life of excess has paid him well.

William F Buckley, after viewing the film Gimme Shelter, wrote of the Rolling Stones and Altamont:

Only this one has an air of finality to it, and, viewing the rushes back in London, Jagger orders the director to run it back in slow motion . Because this was the scene in which one of the guardians of the stage, addressing a tall, slim, hopped-up Negro, brings down a knife, twice, into his back, and kicks him when he is down, and the Negro is dead, the Stones play on for a few minutes, and then they crowd like sardines into the helicopter, and fly out of the lonely crowd, leaving behind them the corpse of Woodstock Nation .